Glock Execs & Gun distributor indicted for illegal bribes

The Kansas City Business Journal reports that the owner of firearms distributor OMB Guns has been indicted for wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. He allegedly paid $1 million in bribes to Glock executives. Brianne Pfannenstiel reports …

John Sullivan Ralph III, an Olathe firearms distributor, has been indicted on charges of paying more than $1 million in illegal bribes and kickbacks to executives of Glock Inc.

Ralph owned Global Guns & Hunting Inc., which did business as OMB Guns. He is charged with one count of conspiracy, 11 counts of wire fraud and 10 counts of money laundering.

Ralph allegedly paid Glock executives in return for giving his company priority access to limited products as well as steering government contracts and sales of firearms to government agencies to him, a release said.

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Also included in the indictment are four others: Glock’s assistant national sales manager, its Eastern regional manager and both of their wives.

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Brandon

Say hello to Club Fed

schizuki

Illegal bribes? As opposed to the legal kind?

particleman

It’s illegal because he paid money to a private sector corporation. If he had instead paid a large sum of money to an elected government official in exchange for political favors, he would be OK because at that point it becomes “lobbying”.

erwos

Bribes overseas are legal in some limited circumstances, but nothing on the order described here.

Rusty Shovel

His mistake was not paying his bribes directly to the government; they hate middlemen.

Slim934

This sounds like a totally bullshit crime case. Basically, he paid off glock execs inorder to get priority access to their merchandise. Private sector entities do this with the government all the time inorder to get contracts. Our legal system is such a fucking farce.

Squinky

I believe it is vital to the firearms community to help the public separate Bad Business from Good Firearms. As has been posted, this is simply undocumented Lobbying. Prepare yourselves – This’ll give Bloomberg a woody.

Professor Hale

I don’t see any bribes here. This is all legally permissible private enterprise between an retailer and a supplier. It’s not even bribery since there are no public officials involved. Commissioned sales, bonuses, coupon sales, and “mail in rebates” are all standard business practices.

Kurt Akemann

It’s that “steering government contracts and sales of firearms to government agencies to him” that makes the bribery charge. There are rules as to how government procurement is supposed to occur, and paying money to get things pushed in your direction in the way this guy did is illegal.

OMB Guns used to be the largest Glock distributor in the midwest and one of the largest in the US. Several years ago a family dispute among owners led to a split – OMB Guns, and OMB Police Express. OMB Guns kept Glock, and OMB Express went to S&W M&P.

The Glock deals were great with OMB. Initially an even swap for old pistols to get new Glocks. Gun buy-backs were offered to individual offers at very low prices (for old pistols, and later old Glocks). Officers could also buy off-duty or back-up pistols for about $100-125 below MSRP. OMB Express went out of business in 2012, while OMB Guns remained fairly strong.

However, a few years (2-3?) ago OMB and Glock disagreed on the price for preference and Glock yanked their distributorship. OMB Guns no longer sells Glocks. It’s interesting to see an indictment after so long. I think on the commercial side OMB was simply “paying to play”, but they may have crossed some legal lines on fair practices when they paid to maintain government contracts.

Meg

The “family dispute”was because the brother who ended up with OMB Express did not want to be involved with the illegal doing of John and Jack Ralph, their father. It was going on for many years.
He knew eventually they would get caught!

Ken Kaminski

Another way for our government to stifle gun sales and help o bama ‘s cause of taking guns out of law abiding citizens hands, hitler at his best

D Powell

One of the big issues, was the Glock Execs supplied software and material for OMB to turn Blue label (Police) UPC into Red label (Civilian) UPC. They were able to buy the Blue labels at a reduced price as that was to be passed on to the officer, instead they turned them into Red labels, marked them way up (2012) and sell them to Civilians. Oh yeah, they gave hundreds of bribes and kick backs to the wives of the Glock Execs for their help. OOPS!

Silverbullet

I have absolutely no idea how this is criminal! Seriously, this is the way business is done. If Glock is guilty so is almost every industry in the USA. Especially the bigger ones. And the even bigger crime is the bribes paid to elected officials. It would only have been illegal in reference to the government contracts if the money had been paid directlty to the goverment officials which probably happens every day. There is NO such thing as bribery in corporate America. Its business as usual. How about lobbiests who get paid to steer government contracts to companies who pay them to do that. Wouldnt that be most all the lobbiests in Washington? This is really pretty unbelievable. Bribery only occurs when money or favors are paid to elected officials. This is a non story about a non case. Prosecute the prosecutor who has harrassed these decent business folk.

Dan Clay

Almost every bribe/conspiracy/kickback case is totally a government crack down and intimidation tactic. The wives? Yeah. Now they are being intimidated by federal investigators and they are trying to get them to plea but admit guilt. These “crimes” are all felony charges and everyone knows that felons can’t be in possession of a firearm. Which is extremely ironic in this case.

Tucson_Jim

For all you Glock fan-boys who point to the proliferation of Glock firearms in law enforcement agencies as a testiment to their value and superiority… it is this type of behavior, ILLEGAL on its face, against government procurement policies at the federal, state and local levels, against corporate policy in ALL major US manufacturers… which got Glock into all those police department agencies in the first place. It is a decent, reliable, inexpensive gun, but, by no means the best.

This is a continuing situation, public record, and you can read about it in “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun” by Paul M. Barrett, as well as writings by Masood Ayoob, and, you can do a search on Google under, “how Glock became America’s gun” and find CBS, NPR, ABC, and Popular Mechanics articles on the whole legacy.

Didn’t your mother teach you, “If all the other children stick their heads in a fire, are you going to also?”

Law enforcement and military arms are chosen by POLITICIANS ! That should explain everything you need to know. Those of you who vote to give more regulatory power to government, are to blame… “He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing” Paul Atreides – Dune

Government is composed of humans, humans are disposed to greed, greed gravitates to power and its abuse… give people the power to control, and you give them the power to extort and exploit. Neuter the government, and let the educated consumer/public control demand for products democratically in a free-capitalistic society like none we have seen in over 150 years.